Categories: OLD Media Moves

Fed must strengthen policies with media

The Federal Reserve Board should strengthen its controls to safeguard sensitive economic information released early to the media, a government watchdog said in a report Wednesday, reports Kate Davidson of The Wall Street Journal.

Davidson writes, “The Fed’s inspector general also warned that some news organizations ‘are advertising and potentially profiting from’ their early access to Fed data by providing high-speed feeds that allow automated traders ‘to act on market-moving information instantly.’

“The Fed board ‘should consider how news organizations are using their access to embargoed information and whether such activities advance the board’s stated purpose,’ the IG said.

“The Fed and other government agencies release embargoed economic information early to news organizations, including News Corp.’s Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires, through a process known as a press lockup. The IG report didn’t mention any news organization by name.”

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Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.